After Thunder, Heat's next small challenge is Knicks

January 31, 2014|By Ira Winderman, South Florida Sun Sentinel

MIAMI — No team has faced small ball more than the Miami Heat these past three seasons. It's called practice.

Yet even with those sessions against the attack that has helped lift Erik Spoelstra's team to consecutive NBA championships, the proliferation of teams going with undersized, athletic, outside-shooting lineups has proven problematic for the Heat's defense.

"You would think we'd be more attuned," forward Shane Battier said after Friday's practice at AmericanAirlines Arena. "But that's the advantage of small ball, it's not something we have seen in game situations a whole lot.

"Working again it in our practices, you're not at game speed, when the popcorn's popping. You're not used to that rhythm."

A jolt of small ball powered the Oklahoma City Thunder to Wednesday's rout on the Heat's home court. Saturday night at Madison Square Garden, the New York Knicks are expected to come out with the same approach, amid the injury absence of 7-foot forward Andrea Bargnani.

"It's been an adjustment for us this year," forward LeBron James said, "because we haven't quite figured out the small-ball lineup as effective as we had in the past."

To a degree, the imitation is the highest form of flattery.

"We felt like the league would go small once we started doing it," James said, "and certain teams that do it, it works well for them. Certain teams, it doesn't. But OKC and the Knicks are two teams that definitely thrive on playing small ball and they've got the personnel to do it."

For the Knicks, it means increased versatility from Carmelo Anthony at power forward, just as James has thrived in a similar role. It also has allowed for the wing dynamics of New York's J.R. Smith, Iman Shumpert, Raymond Felton and Tim Hardaway Jr.

"When they've played really well against us," Battier said, "they've played small and they've made a ton of threes and Carmelo has run around and done what Carmelo has done. At the four, he has so much more space."

Coach Erik Spoelstra said scrimmaging against the Heat's small-ball attack on Friday should help. The problem, of course, is the Heat's first-team defense can't scrimmage against the Heat's first-team small-ball offense.

With Bargnani and Amare Stoudemire out for the Knicks, Spoelstra knows what's coming.

"You do have to deal with the spacing and the quickness, the 3-point shooting, and then obviously you have a great paint presence in Tyson Chandler and not in the conventional post-up way," he said.

James said it was easier to move into small-ball mode on both ends with last season's roster.

"Mike Miller was huge piece of that," he said of the forward released in the offseason in a tax-saving move. "That was always consistent, when [Dwyane] Wade went down or when D-Wade came out of the game, we always had Mike Miller to come in."

Spoelstra's hope is that the sting of Wednesday's loss against the Thunder will lead to greater awareness and effectiveness against the Knicks' undersized attempts.

"We have to get better at it and make some adjustments to it," he said. "To be fair, as well, this pick-and-roll, spread game that's really developed in the last eight to 10 years, offenses are getting that much more aggressive and efficient, that I'm not sure if anybody really in this league has figured it out defensively.

"And that's the challenge, because you're seeing more and more pick-and-rolls and spreads and movement and the ball flying around. You have to be great. You have to develop a great trust level defensively to be able to defend it."

That, center Chris Bosh said, is the essence of the equation. It's not about playing better defense only again small ball, it's about playing better defense, period.

"The only way you can contain small ball is having your closeouts working right, have your defense working as a whole, to not only run them off the 3-point line but protect the paint, as well," he said. "Your rotations have to be correct and it makes it difficult.

"It's the reason why it's had some success; it's the reason why we've had some success with it. It's hard to adjust to."